


You Will Find Me Lost In Starlight

by chaWOOPa



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Gen, IPRE kravitz, M/M, Trans Character, Trans Taako (The Adventure Zone), Will add characters and ships as I go, eighth bird au, no one is cis or straight sorry, stowaway au, trans lup
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-06 06:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13405533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaWOOPa/pseuds/chaWOOPa
Summary: The ship was quiet again and Taako looked over Lup’s shoulder into the glittering space around the Starblaster and his grip on her tightened just a smidge as fresh tears started to fall and a thought burned itself into his consciousness, "I was never meant to make it here".______________________________________Eighth Bird Kravitz/Stowaway Taako au <3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Weevilo707](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/gifts).



Taako wasn’t sure what had gotten him to this point in life, not really. Everything in his life, everything he had done and said and been pointed to someone and somewhere he wasn’t, every card he had been dealt had been designed to set him on a path to nowhere and nothing. Yet here he was, a stowaway on a silver ship meant for the stars, a silver ship meant for him. He had done the work, he had passed the exams, he had _been the better choice_ over his sister according to the people in charge ( _they didn’t know shit, he was useless without her and just a step above with, she was, is, and always will be be the better of the two_ ), and now here he was on a silver ship bound for the stars, hiding carefully in the closet ( _the irony of the situation was something he and Lup had laughed about for hours the night before_ ) from camera after camera and final checks ( _Davenport had seen him at least once since he and Lup had snuck him on the ship, but he had turned a blind eye and Taako wasn’t going to complain when Davenport was insisting on extra supplies_ just in case).

 

At least, not until the ship lurched a few seconds after take off and he heard a shout the front of the ship. He was out of hiding in a snap and running to the deck in an instant to find out what was going on, but before he could quite get there a distinctly female and _not Lup_ voice was screaming a name he didn’t recognize in a language he knew for certain was orcish and the raw grief in it pushed him to climb faster.

 

When he finally made it to deck he almost wished he had ignored the muffled cry because the sight that met his eyes made him want to puke. He raised a hand to his mouth as he watched the sky pour oil-black columns of darkness that seemed to swallow even the very light around them and matching soldiers the size of toys and shrinking as the ship speed away cut through panicked figures of all shapes and sizes. A half-orc woman he recognized as both chronicaller for their journey and the origin of the scream was on her knees with her face in her hands and their bodyguard ( _Lucretia and Magnus Burnsides, Taako recalled with some hysteria_ ) had his arms on her shoulders to comfort her.  

 

Taako watched with wide eyes, not moving an inch as the thing they would come to call The Hunger wreaked havoc on their home, swallowing and killing everything and anything it could until space seemed to bend around the ship itself and silver threads worked their way around each and every member on board. When the silver was gone and Taako could feel the tears on his face again ( _when had he started to cry, he couldn’t remember letting tears fall but that didn’t matter, not really, all that mattered was the vast empty nothingness in his chest cavity as he tried to comprehend the fact that they were never going home again_ ), their home and the opalescent darkness consuming it was gone and all Taako could think was _that should have been me_.

 

There was total silence for a moment as the crew took in what had just happened, shock giving way to grief giving way to the realization that they were probably the last people from home alive. Taako couldn’t get his brain to move past shock even as Lucretia took a deep, shuddering breath and Magnus fell to his knees beside her; even as their bard ( _a handsome half-drow man named Kravitz_ ) turned and spotted him for the first time and did nothing but raise a perfect eyebrow and try to find the energy to smile at him and seem grateful that _someone_ from home had made it here, only for it to turn into something so complicated that he dropped it and looked away almost immediately. He couldn’t even find himself moving past shock as his sister snapped out of it and spinned around to come crashing into him and hug him hard.

 

“ _That was almost you, Koko_ ” she said directly into his hearing aid as she hugged him. “That was almost you.”

 

 _It should have been,_ he almost responded, but instead he just hugged her back harder, finally moving his hand from over his mouth if only to rest it on her back. “I am right here, Lulu,” he reassured her instead.

 

His voice got the attention of the rest of the crew and four people whirled to face him and his sister. They hadn’t really made a secret out of their plan to sneak Taako on board, he and Lup. He had attended every training session and team bonding activity as her ‘guest’ and they had talked extensively about where to hide him. The only people who they had thought had assumed it was actually a joke were the people actually in charge of the bureaucracy of it all but the shocked and slightly betrayed expressions on the faces in front of Taako said different.

 

Lucretia was the worst of the bunch, with tears streaming down her face and her red eyes wide and looking directly from Lup to Taako and back again with a kind of raw pain that only came with watching family die. Taako couldn’t imagine the thoughts running through her mind as they met eyes and a second that stretched into hours before she broke eye contact and stood. Magnus quickly tried to draw her into a hug, to do something to comfort her, but she shrugged him off without a word and walked towards the door to the cabin of the ship where Taako knew Davenport was.

 

There was nothing that could be done about it at this point, and even through the shock of losing home and family Lucretia had to know that on some level, but he supposed this was her way of making herself feel better.

 

He didn’t blame her for it.

 

No one followed her, instead Merle Highchurch ( _Cleric, Taako was pretty sure_ ) gave a curt nod before taking the opposite path to where the crew cabins were, the action was echoed by Barry Bluejeans ( _he was pretty sure that wasn’t his real name but he and Lup had called him that for so long by now that he wasn’t sure what his real name was_ ). Kravitz choose to follow them not long after and Magnus traced the same Path Lucretia had gone, stopping to pat Lup on the back and offer a quiet, “Glad to see you here, buddy,” to Taako.

 

The cabin door slammed not moments later and Lucretia came storming out, eyes red and cheeks stained with tears. She marched right past Taako and Lup, not even sparing them a glare as she went and Taako winced as she slammed the door to the crew cabins as well.

  
The ship was quiet again and Taako looked over Lup’s shoulder into the glittering space around the Starblaster and his grip on her tightened just a smidge as fresh tears started to fall and a thought burned itself into his consciousness, _I was never meant to make it here._


	2. Chapter 2

It took two years and a lot of Merle’s weed for them all to form a real team ( _Taako would treasure the memory of the night Merle drew everyone out of their rooms with the smell of weed and the promise of an escape that meant they actually got to relax for a little while. Everyone has a different idea of when they really truly became a team but for Taako, this was it_ ). The eight of them worked well together when they could work together, but it was hard when Lucretia could barely look at Taako.

 

Her aversion, while justified in the eyes of the parties involved, ended only a few years in. It was during a particularly rough year that Taako and Lucretia started to work together ( _theirs was a friendship forged in fire and battle and being the last two alive and it was brittle and fragile at first but it was strengthened in the peace they found afterwards and the nightmares of being alone_ ).

 

On year ten, when the bond engine ran low on fuel because of an unlucky combination of deaths ( _Davenport wasn’t there to love his crew unconditionally, Lup wasn’t there to wear her and her brother’s hearts’ on her sleeves, and Magnus wasn’t there to bring out the best in everyone_ ) and the hunger seemed like it was closing in; Kravitz and Taako found each other for real.

 

None of the four who were alive for it would talk about what happened before the reset, but something changed fundamentally between the two that day and Lup wasn’t sure if she was glad he was branching out without her, or if she was upset he wouldn’t tell her about it.

 

If Lup and Barry’s love was like embers igniting into a brighter, hotter flame than the one that birthed them, then Taako and Kravitz’s love was like a sudden rainstorm with thunder and lighting too big to contain that settled into calm skies and peaceful days where love flourished in green grass and hillside naps. They were so different, the two bonds, but they were both inevitable and they were both stronger than anything before or after would ever be.

 

Lup and Barry still declared their love to the whole known universe in order to win over the light. The duet that they played on stage is as constant as their love, as their slow drift from stranger to friend to lover. In every universe that these two take on the multiverse together, they take this stage together and they leave it hand in hand.

 

Taako, however, didn’t take this stage alone with a book of repurposed aphorisms, not in this universe. Taako took the stage with a saxophone in hand, shining silver and beautiful to match his long silver dress and Kravitz followed with a dark, polished chello, the very same chello he kept in his room on the starblaster but had never played before. There was a collective hush in the room as they met eyes and everyone waited to hear their love story laid bare. After all, when the twins have been mirrors for so many years you start to expect it.

 

Of course, Taako and Kravitz had always delighted in defying expectations. It is part of the reason they fit so well together.

 

The first note sounded from Kravitz’s chello, long and haunting and like someone let off a bomb, Taako began to play as it began to fade.

 

They played the most energetic and emotional jazz song this plane had ever heard. By the end Taako and Kravitz didn’t care about being accepted by the light, they finished with laughter and light hearts and bright smiles and if you had listened hard enough you could hear exactly the same story about two people who meet and fell in love somewhere between a yearly apocalypse as had been told by Barry and Lup but not many people had tried. There were only six people on the plane who knew the two well enough to hear it.

 

Taako and Kravitz never stopped playing their music, recording it and playing live and dancing and laughing and trying to chase out the darkness that would worm it’s way into the ship on the hard years. The original song would stick with them throughout the rest of their years adrift and even into their time without real memories of where it came from.

 

Things didn’t get much better than that, but they did get much, much worse. Kravitz was careful not to die, he was a backup healer, after all, and more often than not now a days he was the only healer. Taako was careful and cautious, but Lup and Barry weren’t. It was a point of pride and contention that Taako’s death count never went double digit and that Lup’s never stayed below twenty. Kravitz took to studying and eventually worshipping the Raven Queen to keep her emissaries off their backs; Taako found Istus through Kravitz’s study and through her found hope that there would be an end to this.

 

Lup and Barry decided, after Luce spent the year alone, that they would stick around whether they died or not and Kravitz turned a blind eye to a ritual Barry created to be as close to following the rules of life and death as something that tore them to shreds could. It was a hard year for all of them, but they made it.

 

It was hard, but they all made it, somehow.

 

When they made their relics, Taako used a rock he had found on a plane a few years back where magic was based more in minerals than in people. It had kept its magical properties and after extensive study he had found nothing more useful for it. Kravitz went for something a little fancier, but he refused to tell anyone exactly what he had done until it was time to split the light.

 

Magnus put his portion in a goblet he had lovingly named “the time cup”, Lup made “the fire glove”, Barry made “the Animus Bell” ( _Taako refused to take him seriously about the name, the nerd_ ). Davenport left the naming of his monocle up to the world, as did merle with his sash of plant fibers. Taako, to his credit, called his “the transtone” as a shoutout to its creator and what it could do. Lucretia and Kravitz were the only ones who didn’t tell everyone what theirs were until they were done. Lucretia brought out a plain looking quarterstaff one day and put it with the pile, only offering a knowing smile and a shrug when asked what it did. Kravitz was much more forthcoming when he brought out a gold coated, perfectly strung and tuned violin.

 

Of course, his announcement about his relic was quickly overshadowed when Lup pulled Merle aside to mutter something in his ear only for the man to exclaim “ _Taako is Pregnant?!_ ” as soon as she was finished speaking. Kravitz and Lup winched as the rest of the team’s eyes widened and immediately whirled to look at him.

 

It wasn’t like this was the first time this had happened, so while the rest of the team swarmed Lup and Merle for details, Lucretia hung back with Kravitz.

 

“You… You knew that already, right?” She asked ( _sometime between two am lavender tea and the tap tap tap of conversations no one could understand but the two of them, Taako and Lucretia had become closer than either one would have dared to think and now, now Lucretia was more worried about Taako than she was excited for the baby. This was home, sure, but did_ Taako _know that this was home_ ).

 

Kravitz nodded and gently set his violin down next to the other relics. “Yeah. Yeah we weren’t going to announce it just yet, but I guess...” he looked down at his hands a took a deep breath to steady himself. “I guess this really is home, huh?”

  
“Yeah,” Lucretia turned back to look at the rest of her crew as Taako slipped out of the doorway from the crew cabins and was immediately ambushed by Magnus. “ _Home._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo yo yo whaddup it's ya boi, ryley, comin at cha hot with chapter 2. it took some major revisions and reworking to get this to this state and honestly idk if this is even half as coherent as i though it was but i like it so i hope yall did! <3 Your comments and kudos (and comments i live for attention and feedback) are my lifeblood and i love all of you so so much. <3


	3. Chapter 3

Lup left a week before Churrita and Tilla were born.

 

She didn’t say goodbye and Taako couldn’t go after her until it was too late. ( _He will ask her later why she timed it like that when she knew what it would do to him, he will ask her later why she had to leave without backup, and she won’t have an answer for him, but for now all he can do is hold his daughters and cry_ ). He took two weeks to recover before he was back on his feet, and another two weeks before he was allowed to be on the ground and using serious magic.

 

By then there was nothing he could do, no tracks he could follow, no magic signature he could track, nothing. He was working on faith and good guesses, and while he had plenty of the first his supply of the second was perilously low and it was starting to sap at his supply of the first.

 

His one bright light in this time was his daughters. Churrita and Tilla were mirrors of each other, just like Taako and Lup had been when they were little. They had gotten Kravitz’s dark, smooth skin and Taako’s big nose and wide eyes. Their hair was light brown, but the texture of Kravitz’s and it took less than a month for Kravitz to start twisting their hair into more easily manageable dreadlocks.

 

Taako’s favorite part of his baby girls, however, was their mismatched eyes; One gold like Kravitz’s, one purple like Taako’s.

 

He only wished his sister was here to see her nieces.

 

It was two months after Lup left that she slipped away from him. It was slow, at first, imperceptible, like the tide drifting out in the evening. He laid Tilla in her crib next to her sleeping sister ( _It was a miracle to get them to sleep at the same time, something Taako treasured every time it happened and a picture he committed to memory every time it happened, his two baby girls sleeping soundly, safely next to each other in a way he and Lup had never gotten to when they were little_ ) and then swept quietly out of the room as Fisher ate away half of his childhood. He made it on deck where Barry and Kravitz were talking ( _more like hushed arguing at this point, that was really all they ever did now with Lup gone and Taako’s words few and far between without her_ ) over a map of the continent.

 

There were colored pins in the map that represented the last known location of each relic, the red for Lup’s most numerous and the yellow for Magnus’s the least with only one place marked. Taako felt his stomach turn as he counted the violet markers automatically and realized there was one more than when he went to put Tilla to bed. He chose to ignore it for now.

 

“I don’t see how that will make looking for her any easier, not when it is so dangerous down there and we have literal _infants_ here Barry,” Kravitz was saying and Taako’s stomach turned again. Barry had brought up bringing the girls down to the surface once before in an effort to gain sympathy from natives or even lure Lup out of hiding. He understood, really, or, he had at the time, but it just wasn’t worth the risk to his daughters to go looking for someone he had known for one-hundred years tops ( _Later he will remember this thought and he will scream with frustration and anger that he didn’t say something as soon as it came to mind, he will remember this thought and the warning bell in his mind saying something is wrong and he will curse himself for not realizing what had happened, but at that moments, his only thought was of his baby girls, sleeping_ safe _in a crib on a ship he had called home for a long, long time_ ).

 

“Where was the last glassing?” Taako asks instead of addressing the plan Barry and Kravitz had been talking about. He was tired, more than anything. He was tired but he needed to find… He needed to find…

 

“Taako?” Kravitz asked, looking concerned. “Are you alright?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah I just…” Taako sighed, squinting at the map on the table, trying to remember why it was so important a few seconds ago ( _there is some part of his brain that is screaming at him and he knows it,_ he knows it, _but he can’t concentrate on it because the world is blurring at the edges and there is static building up in the back of his mind and everything he reaches for ends in nothing_ ). “We… Um, we are just gonna go down and do the normal routine, You investigate the, um, the glass and I go start asking questions?”

 

Barry and Kravitz met eyes, equal parts confused and concerned until something seemed to spark in Barry’s mind and confusion shifted to concern. “Taako, Taako what if she’s just gone?”

 

Just like that, he didn’t have to reach for there to be static. No more alarms, no more struggling, nothing. There was, for the first and probably last time in his life, truly nothing. “Who?”

 

Like someone had pulled wool over his eyes and ears ( _and gods if the familiarity of_ not hearing _wasn’t a comfort when his vision was as full of static as his head_ ) everything was muffled and someone he knew, or used to know, or had never met in his life-however long that happened to be-was clutching his front and asking to be killed. His heart twisted and his hand tightened on h̛is̡ ̧Kr̴͘e̸͞b͢͟s͠t̢a҉r  automatically. Like a reflex, a muscle he couldn’t quite control and couldn’t quite wrap his head around, he raised it at the man in front of him and _magic_ poured out of the focus ( _he didn’t know it in that moment, he couldn’t know it in that moment, but it would be the last spell he would cast for almost three years, and the last of his true power level he would cast for nearly ten_ ) stronger than any he could remember ( _can he remember anything?_ ) and he memorized the man’s smile ( _pure, happy, relieved_ ) as if his life depended on it.

 

Something dripped onto his shaking hand as he and another man, someone dear to him, he knows, he could sense that, he could feel that in his bones, gazed after their fallen member. He looked down at his soft brown skin to see tears rolling off his hand and onto t̴̢͘͡͏h͝͝e̸͝ ̵̧d͘͝e̷c̴͢͝͏̧k̴͝͠͏҉ ̢͘͡of͜͟͡͞ ̸̕҉̸̕t͠͡h̕͏҉҉ȩ̧̨͜ ̕͡S̷̸̡͝t̨a͠r҉̛͘͜b͏̷̛l̶̨̕͡a̸͝s͏t̷̸͟͢͞e̷r͏,̡̛̕͢͜ ̢͜͢͡ơ̢f̸̸͟͡ ̷̶̸̛͜h̶̕̕i̴̧͘҉s͟͝ ͞h̨͘͟͜͡ǫ̢̛͟m̧͘͢e̛͞ and he looked back up at this man standing across from him over map with too many colorful pins to count ( _just five minutes ago he had been intimately aware of exactly how many pins of each color were on that map from the 32 red to the 1 yellow and exactly what they meant, but now, now..._ ) and something in his chest splits in half and has him gasping for air as the details of his face slide out of focus. “Kravitz,” someone gasps- _he_ gasps and in an instant he is wrapped in this stranger’s arms and he feels ( _safe, happy, home,_ warm)- he doesn’t know how to feel because he fits in his arms like they were made for each other and he can feel his chest aching like everything is wrong, but as someone casts a sleep spell he doesn’t have the mental energy to resist, he can’t for the life of him trace where that pain is coming from.

 

Taako woke up in an inn with a dull ache in his chest, his daughters in a crib across from him, and a stranger whose face he couldn’t quite remember in the bed next to his. There were tear tracks on his face and a smile in his mind that he couldn’t quite place, so he does what had always done best.

 

Taako took a deep breath, steadying breath, picked up his girls gently, woke his newest hire, and hit the road.

 

After all, why waste more time on strange dreams and sad feelings when everything he could ever want was right there in his coach?

 

( _He looks back at the inn as his assistant, a man named Kravitz who he knows is handsome but whose face seems to evaporate every time he looks away, drives the coach away from Phandolin and a half orc woman catches his eye. She is watching their retreating wagon with a mixture of emotions so complex it hurts Taako’s head to think about it and Taako swears he sees her wipe a tear from her eyes before disappearing into the streets of the small city he hopes to never come back to. He turns his eyes forward and lets himself hope that this time, this life will stick, and he lets himself forget the half orc who had watched him leave._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So thanks to Tobi on the TAZ Fic Writer Discord for Nameing Tilla! It is pronounced Ti-ya, at least in my head :) 
> 
> So a lot of people guessed that the baby was Angus and like, i have explored that before and it is super fun but like, i wanted to do something different! This chapter was a little heavy, but next chapter, which is suuuuuper long, is lighter. <3 Thank you guys for the comments and kudos and bookmarks. they mean the world to me. <3


	4. Chapter 4

Taako watches his girls grow with something bittersweet clinging to his heart. Churrita’s first word is a resounding “fuck!” and Tilla follows that up with a sickly sweet “koko!” and there is a half remembered voice in his head saying it with her the  first few times she calls him that, but he pushes the ( _it isn’t quite memory but what else can he call it? The not really that long forgotten whisper of h̴̷̡i̴̧͘͟s̶ ̡͟͠͏s̨͘͟͝͝i͏̴̛͢͝s͢͠͝͠ţe̵̛͟r̸͠҉ calling him Koko with the kind of unguarded affection you only found in t̛͘w̸҉̸i̧͟͞͠n͢͝s̸͟ and toddlers_ ) to the back of his mind and congratulates his babies on finding something to call him and Kravitz.

 

The parents in the towns he visits don’t find it nearly as amusing as he does when his bastard toddlers call their father’s assistant ‘Fuck’ and he knows why, but Kravitz doesn’t mind so they allow it until the girls pick up the word “Kab” and move on to calling him that.

 

They were crawling by the time they were five months and walking only two months after. Taako had to install what Kravitz came to call a child safety net to keep them from waddling off during shows, and as soon as they got the hang of talking ( _it was more like babbling and while Taako could hold entire conversations with them without trouble, he was more worried about them getting grabby with knives than he was worried about introducing another audience draw to the show_ ) it was harder to keep them out of the show than to find a way to include them. Still, he wanted to let them grow just a little longer before he tried to introduce them to the idea of fame.

 

Their first show was almost a year exactly into their life, though he couldn’t place how he knew their exact birthday when he couldn’t remember having them. He picked them up one at a time and found them a place on his workspace, Tilla sitting to side with a conjured barrier around her to keep her from falling off or reaching out for his knives, and Churrita oh his shoulders and clinging to his head. He moved carefully in his practice round, making sure to limit his usually flamboyant movements so as not to dislodge her until he heard a gentle, “Koko big!” from over his head followed by the sound of a raspberry.

 

Had he know Kravitz was watching, he may not have smiled quite as wide or as openly as he did, but the affection in his chest was too much to contain as he started to move more, egged on by the cheers and giggles of his daughters who babbled to an unseen audience about what exactly he was doing.

 

Kravitz smiled to himself in the doorway at the family of three as Taako conversed with his daughters and an invisible crowd, prepping for that nights show and he felt something curl up in his chest that he couldn’t quite name ( _if he let his mind wander far enough he might dare to ask himself if it was love but as soon as the question formed the conclusion would be lost to a thin sheet of static that would sweep up the whole line of thought he had been wondering before hand and he would left with an aching hole in his chest and an itching in his hands for an instrument he hasn’t played in decades_ ). He let it sit in his chest and warm him from the inside out as he watched them rehearse for a few minutes before turning away and picking up his Viola.

 

He steps lightly out of the cart and carefully readies his instrument, for what he isn’t sure, but when he plays the first note he doesn’t really let himself think about it anymore. Instead he lets his fingers play in something resembling muscle memory ( _th̛e ͞o̢n̕l̴y ͟k͞i̶nd of̶ m͡ęmo̷ry t͏h̷͡e͠͡y̧ ̨͏̷ḩ̶a̸d̶ ç͜o̶͜me̸҉ ̨̕t̢̕͞o ҉̴f͏į̧n̸d t̨͜ha͜t̴  ţ͝h̸̸͞e͠ ̵̢͠͏v̵̧͘o҉̸i̵̕͞͞͝d̶̵̡͞f̶͢i̴͝s̶̢̕͞h ҉ç͜o̶̵̡u̷͠l̷̶̢̛͘d̴̴͢͢n͠'͜t̶̴̕͠ ̵̷e͢͞͡r̡̛̛͟a҉̨̢s̡̡̛͜e̸_ ). He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, or crying, he can’t even really remember the melody of the song once he is finished, but he opens his eyes as the last note dies and wipes at his face and lets himself wonder why it had sounded incomplete.

 

In the stagecoach, Taako stops chopping vegetables to wipe his eyes, and then smiles at Tilla. “I don’t know what that silly bard thinks he is up to, making me cry like this, but he better stop it soon. Today is the best of days! Today is your birthday! No tears on your birthday Bubbuelahs!” He set the knife in position to chop as the happy refrains drift through the cart and part of him aches over how empty the song rings. “No tears...” He says to the babbling of his baby girls as watches his hands set to the lethargic task of chopping again and he forgets the song he just heard all to easily.

  


* * *

 

 

Taako celebrates the girls’ second birthday by adding magic to his show, but even more has changed in that year than just his ability as a spell caster. He still cannot know Kravitz’s face unless he is looking at it, but something in his chest pulls him towards him and he finds that he is happiest when he is with his girls and h͏i҉̢̧̨͠s̴̷̕ ̶̕͏h̵̨̛͜u͡҉ş̸̢͠b̢̡̛͝͝a̢͜n̴̴͠d̵̴͘̕͏ Kravitz. His family is one of three and he is okay with that. Tilla has the intelligence to know not to reach for his knives anymore and Churrita had the fine motor skills and, more importantly, the attention span, to sit with Kravitz and try to learn what he does.

 

They babble in a strange mix of common and elven now more than they babble nonsense, and Taako’s conversations are harder now that he has to actually parse what they are trying to say. They still call Kravitz “Kab” and Taako “Koko”, but Taako would rather die than they grow out of that. The first time Tilla uses magic Taako sits her two and half year old ass down and lectured her on why she cannot do that anymore, but all he really wants to do is teach her all the magic he knows. Churrita doesn’t pick up on magic like Tilla, but when Kravitz buys her a learning Violin she shrieks with delight and doesn’t put it down for weeks after.

 

Taako doesn’t even pretend to be betrayed ( _how could he when his daughter is happier than he has been in his entire life? The smile on her face is everything he has ever wanted in life and everything he could have hoped for and more_ ).

 

The girls grow and Taako grows with them ( _he had been just over 100 when he had left… wherever he had been before he had had the girls, and now he was somewhere around 120, he thinks. Thinking about his age made his head hurt, but his point still stood, he was older now, and wiser_ ). He falls in love with a man whose face he can’t remember and every now and then he swears he can see Kravitz in his daughters’ gold eyes. He falls impossibly, inevitably, inexplicably in love with the drow man who makes his show possible and teaches his daughter how to play Violin and isn’t allowed to cook anything but doesn’t mind.

 

Taako asks the girls on their third birthday if they like Kravitz and they look at him like he is crazy. Tilla, ever the sassy one, cocks her head to the side and nails her dad with the same look she has seen him give particularly stupid audience answers all her life. Churrita, for her part, at least doesn’t pull out on of his own looks. Churrita makes her own look and something in Taako aches as she raises her eyebrows in what looks like an attempt to only raise one and says, “Koko,” in that condescending tone that only three year olds can manage to make look cute.

 

Taako can’t stop the smile that spreads over his face even as his ears turn red and perk straight up and he throws his arms around both of them, pulling them in for a hug. The girls giggle and fight him in equal measure, but eventually they give up and hug him back. “I love you,” he says gently, thanking whatever god is listening that his babies can hear him.

  


* * *

 

 

Their fourth birthday is spent in Raven’s Roost ( _they arrive on tail end of a rebellion, walking in the city only hours after a tyrant and his forces walk out and Taako’s show brings hope and laughter to a community in desperate need of just that, so they treat the small family of four to a vacation of whatever they could please_ ).

 

Taako makes dinner for a family of seven for three nights and the local craftsman and his apprentice, Steven Waxman and Magnus Burnsides, craft wooden toys for his daughters to take on the road when they leave while Julia Waxman works with Kravitz to make something special for Churrita.

 

Tilla ends up with a spellcasting focus she designed after their second day staying with the Waxman-Burnsides household, and Churrita, Churrits has a beautiful, hand carved violin to grow into and use when she is old enough to hold it properly. Neither gift is something the girls could use then, but at the years passed and their lives happened, they found that these gifts were worth more than anything else they could have gotten. Of course, that didn’t quite matter to four year old Churrita who took one look at the wooden violin and then went back to playing with the wooden Ducks Magnus had given her.

 

They part ways as friends ( _Taako isn’t sure when he let himself open up enough to_ make _friends but he suspects it has to do with Kravitz and his girls. Somehow, with them in his life, everything seems easier_ ) and the girls cry for a week about how much they miss “Juwie” and “Magwus” until Kravitz and Taako agree to help them write letters.

 

They get small little gifts with every postcard and reply they send, handmade toys and wooden kitchen supplies and even some forged items with the genuine Waxmen seal on it. Taako calls the girls spoiled and they stick their tongues out at him and hug their gifts close.

 

For all their gifts and loving adults in their life, Churrita and Tilla are not spoiled. Taako’s show is well known enough to make decent money at the best of times, but things aren’t always the best of times and they know this. They are only five but they are sharp; Tilla knows her cantrips and isn’t shy about using them; Churrita knows more music than Taako ever has ( _but there is something about that that rings untrue some days as Taako’s fingers itch for an instrument he has never picked up or even seen before_ ) and she can weave magic into the melodies in the same way Kravitz does.

 

 

 

They are less involved in the show now that they are old enough to choose. Sometimes they help Taako or Kravitz, and sometimes they just watch. During rehearsals before shows they will often play near the wagon or practice magic or language or reading and writing. Tilla has always had an easier time picking up on the small, technical things like language than Churrita, but they always worked together to figure things out.

 

* * *

 

 

They were five and a half when Sazed made his appearance.

 

It was a short ordeal, overall, but it was a bad omen, in hindsight. He emerged from the woods near where the girls were reading and started to try to sweet talk them. “Hey there girls,” he started.

 

“Who the fuck are you?” Churrita demanded, earning a small smack from her sister.

 

“Kab said not to say that word anymore!” she reprimanded quietly, before turning to Sazed with distrust clear in her mismatched eyes. “Who _are_ you, though?”

 

He smiled and the girls flinched back, “I am Sazed! I run a candy store in the town your dad is going to perform in later today. I wanted to offer you guys some free samples, since your father is going to offer his own free samples at his show!”

 

Churrita turned to Tilla, her eyes wide and excited for a second before Tilla, eyes narrowed, said, “We should go ask daddy first.”

 

Churrita took a second to process before seeming to catch on and then nodded at her sister, turning back to look at Sazed. “Yeah, we should go ask Daddy or Kab.”

 

“No need,” Sazed said, leaning forward and grinning. “This can be our little secret! Right? You two will just come with me and-”

 

He had reached out towards the girls and before he could get closer than a foot his sleeve was on fire and Tilla was shrieking as loud as she could.

 

In the blink of an eye both Kravitz and Taako were in the area with the girls and had one each in their arms, checking them over to make sure they were okay. “You-She set me on fire and-and your first instinct is to make sure that little _brat_ is okay?!” Sazed spat, hand over the charred remains of his left sleeve.

 

Taako finally looked up at him, ice in his purple eyes, and said, “When my daughter shrieks like that, it is not because she is in the wrong, my dude,” He stood carefully, one hand holding Tilla’s and the other reaching for his wand. “Now, I suggest you tell me why you were here, alone, with my daughters, and why My little Titi here felt so threatened that she had to use produce flame.”

 

Kravitz had mirrored Taako’s movements sometime between his first word and his last and now Sazed was staring down the family of four and he didn’t feel nearly as confident as his jealousy had made him feel when he had decided to go after the girls just that morning.

 

The girls were sent inside not too long after that while the adults had a _chat_ and they left that town shortly after that. Tilla didn’t quite understand what had happened after they left, why Taako looked so pale and Kravitz so stoic as they drove the wagon away from the town of Glamour Springs, but Churrita had it figured out fairly fast.

 

Sazed wouldn’t bother anyone anymore.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The girls’ Seventh birthday was spent in a beachfront dwarven community and although they didn’t know it at the time, it would be their last birthday with both the men that had raised them so far.

 

Taako had a show booked for the beach and both girls wanted to help so he reworked it. He taught the girls their own recipes and made it a family affair, taught Tilla to use prestidigitation to change sand into salt, he taught Churrita to use her music to make the food move and dance and prepare itself. Kravitz let the three of them be the show even though the girls tried their hardest to drag him into it ( _part of him found peace in just watching them perform and the other half of him felt like he should be there with them, but mostly he just loved seeing them happy, so he watched_ ).

 

The three of them made a veritable buffet of food for these dwarves, charming children and adults alike in a society that didn’t welcome them at first. After the show, The girls played with the other children in the community while Taako and Kravitz talked with the many adults to arrange lodging for the night.

 

They ended up with two days lodging with a friendly old man ( _something about his rosy, weather-stained cheeks and the smile lines around his beady eyes felt like home to Taako and he was glad he could stay for longer than a day_ ) named Merle Highchurch and his less open wife Hecuba Roughride.

 

Their children Mavis and Mookie were a delight to have around the girls and Taako got along with Hecuba better than Merle seemed to. There were no extra presents here, not after they went beachcombing and found several shells each ( _there was a moment on the beach where Taako looked out on the waves and his body ached for something he couldn’t name and he was getting tired of this white space behind his eyes every time he looked at something too familiar to be new but too new to be familiar; Taako had never seen the ocean before_ ).

 

Taako has his first kiss under the full moon on the soft white sand of the dwarven beach community on their second night there. His daughters are supposed to be asleep in sleeping bags on the floor of Mavis’s room but they are watching from the porch as their dad walks along the shoreline with the man he has loved for what feels like a thousand lifetimes but can’t be more than three years tops ( _he will know, later, much, much later, that is was so much longer than that, but right now, in that moment, he was missing more puzzle pieces than he thought he was_ ). They are just over seven years old and they know already how much their father loves the man beside him and it doesn’t surprise either of them when the walking and quiet chatting turns into standing close, too close, then leaning, then holding.

 

Taako looked up at Kravitz, whatever he was going to say dying on the tip of his tongue as his purple eyes met Kravitz’s gold. Kravitz leaned his head down gently, letting their foreheads rest together and everything felt right. The sounds of the night fell away until it was just the two of them and the breeze on his skin and the sand between his toes and Kravitz’s breath mingling with his own. All of the universe condensed to the space between the two of them and their heartbeats.

 

Time seemed to stand still as Taako closed his eyes and let himself be vulnerable for the first time in his life.

 

The girls crept up to bed after their dad kissed Kravitz, satisfied with how things had gone.

 

They left the next day, the girls playing in the back of the wagon and Taako leaning on Kravits as he drove. The future wasn’t certain, but in that moment, Taako felt happier than he had in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a good good sweet chapter to fill in the pain i have been delivering and will continue to deliver. <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Light tw for blood. I mention it twice but nothing too bad. This is where the death happens, also. It is just a heavy chapter. I am sorry. :(

“Taako!” Taako jumped at the sound of Julia’s voice booming from behind him as he put the horses up. “Magnus is on his way back from a crafting competition, but Kravitz got to the shop with the girls just a few minutes ago and Steven sent me down to greet you and make sure your welcome was a proper one!”

 

Taako turned and pretended to pout to cover the genuine smile he was having a hard time suppressing. He had been doing that a lot lately, showing genuine emotion. “No Magnus? The girls will be so disappointed!”

 

She laughed and pulled him in for a hug. “Not to worry, he will be back tonight or tomorrow morning. The girls will have plenty of time to play with him in the week you’ll be staying, won’t they.”

 

He patted her back and broke the hug, grinning. “Yeah, a week, sure. And then the two weeks after when you guys watch them so that Krav and I can get ourselves a nice vaca after we make _this_ ,” Taako waved his hand in front of her face to show off the simple golden ring Kravitz had picked up after months of Tilla and Churrita moaning about them not getting married like normal people “official, you get me?”

 

Julia gasped and grabbed his hand, twisting it this way and that to inspect the simple band. It really was nothing fancy, and Taako wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure, he was all about flair and exaggeration and gods know he loved anything that drew the eye, but this? The simple gold band on his left ring finger? That was all Kravitz, and he loved it with every piece of him.

 

“When did this happen?!” Julia asked, eyes wide.

 

“About a month ago, Kemosabe,” Taako said smoothly, sliding his hand out of her grasp as she gaped at him. “It all started when we met this old married couple, some dwarves on a beach, and Kravitz got all mushy and shit and-” before he could finish his statement a great rumble sounded and the ground beneath them shook.

 

Taako met Julia’s wide eyes, fear and worry in equal measure reflected back at him before they looked out towards the expanse of Ravens Roost.

 

Time seemed to slow to a stop and for the s̕͟e҉҉̴̸c̕҉ơ̡̢͢͞n̵̛d͏̵̴͝͠ time in Taako’s life, he felt his whole world fall out from under his feet as his chest split in half.

 

Ravens Roost was falling.

 

Taako felt like an outsider in his own body watching as Julia screamed and he fell to his knees. There was silence in his head as a familiar ( _what about it was familiar he couldn’t place but it was comfortable to let it consume his thoughts as his knees pressed into the hard, dry dirt road that used to lead to the Craftsman’s corridor of Raven’s Roost_ ) white fog gathered at the edges of his vision and overtook his thoughts and static rang in his ears because the feeling in his chest of _loss loss loss_ and _hurt hurt hurt_ was too familiar to be new but too new to be familiar.

 

His brain smothered the image of falling debris with waves cresting white and beautiful in front of the sunset and his hollow chest ached for the happiness he almost had ( _he will realize later that the beach his mind brought him back to that day as his life crumbled in front of his eyes wasn’t one that belonged in his memory, it wasn’t even one that belonged in this world_ ).

 

He could still see the Roost falling, like a movie on the back of his eyelids that he couldn’t turn off or pause, rocks and wood and people and belongings, all falling over and over while he watched, helpless to stop-Julia yanked him out of his daze, pulling him to his feet and wordlessly pointing his head to a pair of still falling figures. These two, they weren’t falling so much as floating gently to the ground, their soft, brown, twisted locs fanning out around them as they clung to each other. One of them was pointing a hand out, palm flat like Taako had taught her and there were lights flying from her hand and dancing around her and her sister, illuminating them weakly but enough to know that they were there and they were alive.

 

They were alive.

 

Taako screamed.

 

He was off the ground and sprinting towards the rubble in an instant, screaming for his babies. He saw them turn towards him just before they fell out of his line of sight behind a particularly tall pile of rubble. “ _They are alive,_ ” he said to himself as he ran, finally looking at where he was going. “ _They are alive._ ”

 

He slowed to a stop as he reached the edge of the disaster to take in the scene before him and he felt a hand on his arm before he do more than take a deep, steadying breath. “ _Those are my kids!_ ” He spat, venom burning his throat on its way out as he spun to face whomever would keep him from his kids. He couldn’t remember drawing his wand, but it was clenched in his hand and pointed right at them.

 

Julia didn’t even blink as she reached up and pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Figured you could use some help looking.” She let her arms fall to her side and there were others following behind her, some with spells at the ready to quell fires, healers and fighters to pull people out of the rubble, should they find survivors.

 

Taako lowered his wand, then nodded sharply and turned on his heel. Before he could take a step, she grabbed his arm again. “ _They will be okay,_ ” she said gently. “ _They will be okay and we will find them._ ”

 

Taako took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped tears he hadn’t noticed until then off his face. “I know,” He said without turning back around to look at her. “I know.”

  


* * *

 

 

There was nothing left in Taako’s stomach to expel when they found Steven. Julia, strong, impassive Julia who had moved through the debris and destruction with her head held high, had her hand over her mouth and was wailing. She fell to her knees next to Steven’s body and Taako had to look away, the dry heaving and the tears on his face too much for him to handle in addition to the emotions he could feel swirling like a storm behind his eyes.

 

He left Julia behind.

 

He pushed his emotions into a bottle, falling back into a pattern he hadn’t touched in years, and pulled thoughts of his daughters and Kravitz to the front of his find. _Find them first, feel things later_ , he told himself as he cleared another section of wood and stone. No sooner had he cleared the stones, than he was tackled to the ground by a small, shaking body.

 

“ _Koko you found me,_ ” Churrita said, voice quiet and hoarse. Taako immediately hugged her hard.

 

“I am right here Ita,” He said, as much for his sake as for hers. “Where is Titi and Krav?” He pulled back and ran a hand through her hair, looking her up and down for major injuries. Thankfully, the most serious injury was a small cut above her left eyebrow that looked more like a scrape than anything.

 

“They, um,” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Titi is with Papa. He...” she hiccuped and the tears that had barely slowed down since she had seen him started to flow faster again.

 

“Don’t worry about it baby, we will get out of this and everyone will be okay, alright Bubbuelah?” Taako stopped her, his stomach twisting itself into something he wasn’t sure qualified as a knot or even a stomach anymore. She nodded slowly and he kept a hand on her cheek as he said, “Can you lead me to them?”

 

She nodded again and took a deep breath before taking his hand and pulling him to his feet then leading him and around several piles of wreckage. Taako couldn’t stop the gasp that left his mouth, nor his hand that flew to cover it upon seeing the rest of his small family.

 

Tilla was sitting next to a pile of stone and wood twice her size with one hand tangled in Kravitz’s hair and the other clutching at her swollen ankle, tears streaming down her face as the small lights from when they were falling danced around her. Kravitz was half buried in broken wooden boards and stone, one hand on Tilla’s leg as though he were trying to comfort her, and his head resting on his other. There was blood pooling around him from too many places and neither of the girls would look directly at him, but in the chaos, the lights conjured by Tilla spun and danced between the two of them and Taako could hear, faintly, a lullaby he had sung to the girls since they were born.

 

Tilla’s voice was off-key and wobbly, far too quiet and somber for an eight year old, but she was there and she was alive. Kravitz was another matter. Taako only realized he had stopped moving when he felt Churrita tugging on his arm. “Come on, Koko.” She said desperately.

 

Taako met eyes with her and it didn’t matter how fast she looked away, he still saw the same knowledge he had reflected back at him through her eyes.

 

Kravitz wouldn’t make it.

 

Taako took a deep breath and steeled himself for what was to come, then joined Tilla’s refrain with his own voice. He wasn’t surprised when it was just as eneven as hers.

 

 _“_ _Elgara vallas, da'len_

_Melava somniar_

_Mala taren aravas_

_Ara ma'desen melar_ _”_

 

Tilla looked up at the sound of his voice, tears sparkling with her dancing lights, and she gasped. “Papa, Papa look it’s Koko.”

 

Taako saw the hand on Tilla’s leg tighten just barely and there was a cough as though he had tried to speak, but Taako kept singing as he walked towards them.

 

“ _Iras ma ghilas, da'len_

_Ara ma ne'dan ashir_

_Dirthara lothlenan'as_

_Bal emma mala dir_ ”

 

Tilla let Taako sit down in front of her and slowly, ever so carefully, lift Kravitz’s head so he could let it rest in his lap. There was a sigh of relief from Kravitz as Churrita came and sat in front of Tilla, leaning on his side. Taako offered one hand to his girls and ran the other through Kravitz’s locs ( _He couldn’t think the thought, but if he could have, he would have compared them to his daughters’. He would have compared how soft and well-kept they were, even as blood soaked as they were. Instead, he tries hard not to think_ ).

 

Taako couldn’t quite see Kravitz’s face as he sung, but he could feel the way he relaxed into his lap, the way his labored breathing slowed and heartbeat stuttered. Tilla scooted closer to Taako and Kravitz as he finished the elven rendition of the lullaby and launched into the common translation ( _He couldn’t remember where he learned the song, he would realize later. It was just there, floating among the white and static that he supposed used to be memory. It must have been important once_ ).

 

“ _Sun sets, little one_

_Time to dream._

_Your mind journeys,_

_But I will hold you here._

 

_Where will you go, little one,_

_Lost to me in sleep?_

_Seek truth in a forgotten land,_

_Deep within your heart._ ”

 

Tilla’s lights danced around their family of four and between one word and the next Taako last track of Kravitz’s breathing. Part of him thought it was probably for the better as he looked at his daughters or the remains of the roost or really anything but his love and tried to keep his voice above a whisper.

 

“ _Never fear, little one,_

_Wherever you shall go._

_Follow my voice-_

_I will call you home._ ”

 

He almost made it. Churrita finally noticed Kravitz and leaned forward to close his eyes and Taako lost his voice. He opened his mouth to finish but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t find his voice, so instead he gathered his girls in his arms and hugged them.

 

He hadn’t lost them. _He hadn’t lost his girls._ He told himself as the three of them sat there and waited for others to find them.

 

“ _I will call you home,_ ” Tilla finished quietly for him.

 

The healers arrived ten minutes too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the lullaby can be found here --> https://irenezhong.bandcamp.com/track/mir-dalen-somniar
> 
> it is a lotr version elven one, and like, my thing is just that Luce forgot to erase that particular lullaby they learned on that world lmao. Also I promise things get better from here. 
> 
> and for yall who were concerned for the girls, I did, in fact, promise they were safe and no one was coming for their souls. No girls were killed in the making of this chapter. <3


	6. Chapter 6

When Magnus got back, there was something different about Taako and the girls. The girls wouldn’t look anyone in the eye and Taako was closed off and reclusive. His grin was too sharp and his frown too deep. Julia said they were grieving but Magnus felt like he knew what Taako’s grieving looked like and this wasn’t it ( _he didn’t understand where this feeling was coming from, but he was willing to trust it. His gut hadn’t been wrong yet_ ).

 

The girls stuck by their dad and kept two feet on the ground at all times, less like eight year old girls and more like adults who had seen their fair share of tragedy. It hurt Magnus’s heart.

 

By the time he got home most of the people who had been caught in the disaster were accounted for, and Taako and the girls were helping Julia find what she could to take on the road. Taako had donated his wagon to a family with small children who had happened to be in a different part of the city and needed to find a new place to live. Julia had argued against it, saying he needed it for his show, but Taako refused to hear her.

 

“What can I do with it now?” he had said, voice hollow and lacking its usual hint of venom. “It was a two man operation and we are down one, Julia.”

 

He didn’t say, _Every time I am happy it all falls apart._ He didn’t say, _I can’t stand at the counter without crying._ He didn’t say, _I can’t remember his face and I can’t stop feeling like he will be back even though I know he won’t._ He didn’t say any of that, but he really didn’t have to. Tilla gripped his hand a little harder than necessary and Churrita’s hold on the wooden violin Kravitz had helped make and tune for her years ago made her knuckles white.

 

Julia got the point.

 

Magnus helped move some of their things to the new wagon the five of them would share, then he set about helping get other people ready and helping clear debris. Taako found himself cooking at the tavern to help alleviate both his own listlessness and the the strain of supporting the displaced families. His daughters did what they could to help as well, Churrita would play whatever happy and hopeful songs she could think of and remember, Tilla helped Taako cook, lending two real hands and a mage hand as well as companionship.

 

Churrita would join them from time to time, letting Julia take over out in the tavern. Julia, for her part, did the most out of all of them to help. Taako called it unhealthy but Magnus and the girls knew it was just her way of coping. She did not grieve through tears and sadness.

 

Julia had always been a woman of action, and she remained so in times of woe. In the destruction of her home she spent countless hours searching and cleaning and helping and working to bring her people hope in dark times.

 

“Who did this?” Taako asked late one night, as they drank water in the kitchen and watched Taako’s mage hand put away the clean dishes from dinner. Tilla was curled up on the bench next to Taako with her head in his lap and Churrita was out in the main room, playing something soft that Taako had never heard before. The more she played the better she got at improvising and Taako’s chest ached knowing she was growing so much faster than she should have.

 

He let his free hand find its way to Tilla’s hair and start running through it as he remembered that both his girls were too grown up for their own good.

 

Julia pursed her lips and looked into her mug. “You remember the first time you came here?” She asked him back, instead of answering his question.

 

Magnus slipped into the room as she took a drink, allowing Taako a second to think back to when times were better. He shrugged. “Well enough,” he said as Magnus sat down on Julia’s other side, slipping his arm around her and letting his head fall onto her shoulder.

 

Taako didn’t resent them as he lifted his mug and his eye caught on the simple gold band still on his left ring finger.

 

He didn’t resent them.

 

“You came in the day after our rebellion - or, I guess revolution since it was successful - but you came the day after it was finally, actually over,” Julia said as though this wasn’t something Taako knew. “The old Governor, Governor Kalen-”

 

“What does this have to do with what happened?” Taako snapped. He didn’t resent them, but the wound was still fresh and something about the way they fit together made him sharper than he should have been.

 

“I’m getting to it,” Julia snapped back, before seeming to remember herself. She took a deep breath and there was only the sound of clanging dishes and cabinet doors for a moment as they relaxed their barbs. Tragedy and exhaustion lined the heart and the tongue with spikes and poison sometimes and it was hard to swallow them. “We found a couple bombs that failed to go off at the base of a couple columns, and they had his marks on it. The rebellion originated with the craftsman’s corridor, so this was his revenge.”

 

Taako continued running a hand through Tilla’s hair as he let the information sink in before carefully saying, “So… So we were just… Cau-caught in the crossfire of some… some stupid man’s inability to just.. Just let things fucking go?”

 

Magnus was the one to speak up this time. “Taako I.. We are so sorry. You were never meant to get caught up in all of this. We thought it was over and we were safe, otherwise we would have never suggested you come stay here.”

 

Taako’s hand stilled in his daughter’s hair as his mind caught up with the conversation for what was probably the first time in his life. He _knew_ that what Magnus was saying what true. He knew that. He didn’t blame them, not really. After all, it had been Taako who insisted they come back to the Roost for their vacation, and then some cowardly man whose face he had never seen who had torn his life apart.

 

Taako didn’t feel anything. He couldn't.

 

“Koko?” Churrita called quietly from doorway, as though scared to break the silence.

 

Taako’s head snapped up from where he had been staring at the table and he smiled gently at his daughter as best as he could muster. “Come here Bubbuelah. Tilla is on the bench here, so you need to be quiet, but you can come join me.”

 

She made her way over quietly as Magnus collected the cups from in front of Julia and Taako and went to the sink to rinse them and fill them with more water. “Koko, is it true that Magnus is the reason Papa Krav is dead?”

 

Taako wrapped his free arm around her, gulping and not looking her in the eyes as he pulled her close. They made a tragic picture, the three of them. Two girls, both far too grown for the age they were, leaning heavily on the only parent they had left, and their father. A man too weak to protect them from the wrath of someone he didn’t even know. Taako finally looked down at her and shook his head. “Whoever said that has no idea what they are talking about, Ita.” Taako pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead before pulling her further into his side. “Magnus and Julia are very good people, and no matter what happens from here on out, you and Titi can trust them, okay?”

 

“They won’t...” Churrita was chewing her bottom lip as she spoke and she wrung her hands in her lap, talking as though they weren’t in the room. Taako didn’t have to look to see the tears in her eyes. “They aren’t replacing Papa Krav?”

 

Taako shook his head. “No Ita. And they wouldn’t ever dream of trying.”

 

The five of them left a week later with a new wagon of supplies and a Raven Tilla had picked up sometime after the disaster. It wasn’t a remarkable way for the relative easy and safety that had come with Kravitz to end, but then again, Taako had never known any ending to  _be_ remarkable.

 

They were just endings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends the section i am calling Part one lmao. we get into BOB days and there will be some changes and also a little longer between chapters becasue i am a fuck who is bad at school and i got a job and also i am tired and sad so like???? i am sorry yall i am trying.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I know i know , "Another multi chapter when you haven't updated the other one in months?!?!?!?!" and all i can say is I am sorry. I am a shit and i hate that i haven't updated just as much as you have. 
> 
> I have more of this one written than i do that one, so like, hopefully this will be semi-regular in updates, lmao. <3 thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy it!


End file.
